Mr. McKinley’s proposition sounded reasonable. “The House,” he said, “has given to the country one bill framed upon one principle and based upon the line of party policy with which the majority is in accord. The Senate has given to the country another bill resting upon an entirely different principle and following out an entirely different line of public and party policy. The Senate has asked the House to consent to a committee of conference to consider the disagreement so presented, that they may see if in some manner this great difference between the two Houses cannot be reconciled. “Now, what do we want to do as practical men? What does the country expect of us? We want to reduce the public revenues and we can reduce them without my friend from Texas being called upon to surrender one jot of his free-trade principles or this side surrendering one jot of its protection principles. If the House of Representatives meets the Senate in free and open conference and those provisions are adopted where the two bills meet on common ground, we can reduce the revenues from thirty-five to forty millions of dollars and still preserve for future settlement the general policy of taxation respectively adhered to by the two parties. “All we have to do, Mr. Speaker, is to take up these two bills and look at the duties and changes in rates which are common to both. First, the abolition of the tax upon tobacco—$30,000,000; that is common to both bills. Then you take the free list; that is common to both bills. Then you take the administrative features of both bills. Both seek the same purpose; both look to an honest collection of the revenue and an honest administration of the customs laws. “This administrative bill has nothing to do with politics; it has nothing to do with free trade; it has nothing to do with protection; it has nothing to do with party principles or policies. It is above politics and should be divorced from party. But it has everything to do with an honest administration of the customs laws, whether they are based upon the principle of protection or upon the principle of free trade. “Now, why not, as practical men, seeking to relieve the Treasury of the United States of its congestion, as described by the President of the United States, meet this condition and relieve the Treasury of its accumulating surplus and leave this vast sum of money with the people, where it belongs? ‘It is not a theory; it is a condition.’ Shall we run away from the condition which we can in part relieve, or waste our valuable time now upon theory?”